The purpose of selection is to choose the most suitable candidates who would best meet the job demand in an organisation. To find out which job applicants will be most successful, if hired, the company seek to obtain and assesses lot many of information about the applicants’ age, qualifications, skill set, experience, and so on and so forth. The requirements of the job are matched with the profile of applicants and the most suitable candidates are picked up. The unsuitable applicants are eliminated through successive stages of selection process. The match between the employees with the jobs is utmost important because it directly affects the amount and quality of employees’ work. Any mismatch in this regard can cost an organisation in terms of loss of money, time and cause trouble. Especially, the organisation has to incur a lot in terms of training and operating costs. In course of time, the mismatch employees find the job distasteful and leave the organisation in frustration. Thereby the rate of turnover increases. After leaving the company, he may even circulate negative information, causing incalculable harm in the long run.
Selection Process.
According to Dale Yoder – ” Selection is the process in which candidates for employment are divided into two classes. Those who would be offered employment remain in one group and those who would not are put in another”. Selection of the right candidates reduces turnover and lays the foundation of any organization’s success. However, there is no such full proof selection procedure which can ensure low turnover and high profits. The following steps generally make up the selection process. Reception and Initial Screening [Stage 1]: Employee selection process starts from screening. This is a sorting process, in which prospective applicants are provided with the necessary information about the nature of the job and also required information is elicited from the candidates regarding their education, experiences, acquired skill set, expected salary etc. Based upon the given information, the suitable candidates are selected for further process and unsuitable candidates are eliminated. A preliminary Interview may also be conducted at this stage. This stage involves a crude screening procedure and usually done by junior level executives in the HR department. Application Scrutiny [Stage 2]: Sometimes no application formats is designed and applications are invited on a plain sheet. The applicants are asked to give details of their age, marital status, educational qualifications, work experiences and references. Sometimes, same organisation use different types of application forms for different types of employees. Some application forms are very simple and seek general information which is easily answerable. While other forms may complex and require elaborate and detailed information. However application forms serve as a preliminary screening device. It is more effective, when applications are received in direct response to an advertisement and without any preliminary interview. The information provided in the application gives the preliminary idea about the chances of success of the candidate in the job for which he has applied and also provides the starting point for the interview. Very often, a lot many candidates are rejected on the basis of scrutiny of the applications as they are found to be lacking in necessary educational standards, minimum experiences or some other relevant eligibility and traits. Selection Tests [Stage 3]: Test shows an aspect of individuals’ behaviour, their performance and attitude. By following systematic procedure test can be helpful for comparing the behaviour of two or more persons. The uses of tests in personnel selection assume that, individuals are different in terms of their job-related skills and abilities which can be measured adequately and accurately. Tests seek to eliminate or minimise the possible prejudices of the interviewer and put emphasis on potential ability on selection decisions. Tests, may uncover qualifications and talents of applicants that would not be identified by interviews or by listing of educational qualifications and job experiences. Tests are useful when a large number of applicants are there. However, to serve the useful purpose, tests need to be properly constructed; selected and administered . The followings are different types of tests used in selection process. Group or individual TestsInstrumental TestsAchievement or Intelligence TestsAptitude or Potential Ability TestsPersonality TestsInterest TestsGroup tests are designed to test a group of candidates simultaneously. Individual tests are meant for individual candidates at a particular point of time. Instrumental tests can be administered to a group or can be individual tests. When instrumental test is an individual test, it makes use of different tools to study a candidate’s familiarity and skills. But in case of application of instrumental test to a group, it involves a written test or paper and pencil test to study the written responses of the candidates. Aptitude tests are intended to assess the potentiality of the applicants to learn the job. Whereas achievement tests assess how effectively an individual can perform his job. Conventionally, aptitude tests are administered on fresher, those who do not have any past job experiences. While achievement tests are intended for experienced candidates. For marketing jobs and managerial and executive positions achievement tests have much relevance. However testing is a very complex method and it has got wide divergence, so far as the attitudinal measurement is concerned. Interview [Stage 4]: Personal interview is universally accepted and used tool in any selection process. An employment interview is characterised as a conversation between one person on one side, known as interviewee and another person or panel of persons on the other, known as interviewers. It provides an appraisal of personality of the interviewee by obtaining relevant information about the prospective employees’ background, education, training, work history and interests. Simultaneously, the candidates are provided with information about the company, the specific job demand and the personnel policies by the interviewers. It also facilitates in establishing a friendly relationship between the employers and the applicants and motivates the suitable applicants to work for the organization. However, in practice, it turns out to be one-sided affair. Only, the employers seek to obtain the necessary information from the candidates. The other two purposes are not served generally. There are different types of interview as follows. The Patterned Interview: This is also known as structured or standardized interview. It is intended to assess the candidate’s emotional strength and stability. It also asses the employee’s ability to get along with others, their self- reliance, motivational level and willingness to accept responsibility etc. Indirect or Non-directive Interview: This type of interview is otherwise known as free interview. It is meant for helping the candidates to feel relaxed and free to talk. Interviewers become listeners and allow the candidates to reveal their personality and their in-depth knowledge in a free and relaxed atmosphere. Depth or action Interview: It is semi structured in nature and seeks to secure candidates’ education, previous experience, aptitude, home life, recreational interests and hobbies. The interviewer provides instructional information about his organisation. Such an interview seeks to get a true picture of the interviewees by intensively examining his background in order to ascertain the suitability of the candidates. Stress Interview: This interview try to assess the candidates’ emotional stability under a situation of tension and stress. Therefore such tension is deliberately created by interruptions, provocations, silence, and criticism or even by throwing firing questions. In such type of situation, the interviewers become deliberately more unfriendly and even some times, hostile. For selection of executives, those who are required to work under stressful situation, such method is often adopted. Group discussion Interview: This method attempts to assess the leadership ability of the candidates. Generally, a topic is assigned to the groups rather than individuals. The groups are required to discuss the topic among them. The interviewers remain in the background to assess the best leaders, their initiative, poise, adaptability, awareness and interpersonal skills, etc. Panel or Board Interview: Several interviewers collectively interview a candidate to rate his/ her attributes. Generally, such a panel consists of several experts and each of them interviews a candidate in accordance with their own area of expertise. Physical Examination [Stage 5]: Applicants after crossing over one or more of the preliminary hurdles in the process of selection, have to undergo physical examination test. This is conducted either by the organization’s physician or by a medical officer approved for the purpose. A physical examination provides an indication of fitness of the candidates for the concerned job. It also discovers existing disabilities and obtains a record thereof. That may be helpful for the organisation in the event of a workman’s compensation claim. Reference checks [Stage 6]: The applicants are asked to mention in their applications, the names and addresses of three such persons who usually know them well. These include the previous employers, friends, or professional colleagues. They are approached by mail or over telephone and requested to furnish their honest opinion either on specified points or in general about the candidates without incurring any liability. They are well assured that, all information supplied by them would be kept confidential. However, very often either no response or a favourable response is received. Final Decision [Stage 7]: Applicants who cross all the hurdles successfully are finally considered for selection. At this stage, if there are more persons than that of the required numbers, then the persons with the highest scores are finally selected. Placement [Stage 8]: At this stage, selected new employees are put on probation for a specific period. After probation is completed, if they match the organisational requirements they are confirmed or made permanent. The personnel department periodically reviews the progress of such employees who are in probation by asking feedbacks on their performance from their controlling authority. Some organisations extend the probationary period, if the employees fail to match to the organisational expectations. Such placement is known as ‘ differential placement’. Placement is defined as assigning jobs to employees depending upon their suitability based on the selection techniques. If a particular employee is recruited against a specific vacancy, then the question of assignment of job does not arises. Generally, the question of placement arises, when a group of trainees are recruited. In such cases organisations make provision for short-term placement to identify the true potentiality of an employee. During this phase, employees are allowed to work on different jobs through systematic job rotation programme. However, at a later stage, permanent placement is effected matching the employee’s competence, knowledge, and skill and job interest. A proper placement reduces employee turnover, curb absenteeism, prevent accident rates and improves morale.
Attitude & Attitude survey
Attitude is a mental states of an individual by which an individual tends to act or respond or is ready to respond for or against certain objects, some situations etc with which his/ her vested feeling or interest, liking, desire and so on are directly or indirectly linked or associated.. Attitude is learned cognitive mechanism. During the course of development of attitude, a person acquires tendencies to respond to objects. To change attitude, it requires changes in knowledge. Attitudes are different from knowledge. Knowledge reinforces attitudes and reinforced attitudes reinforce individual and group behaviour in the long run. Hence, attitude is neither behaviour nor the cause of behaviour. It relates to an intervening pre-disposition or a frame of reference that influences the behaviour of an individual. When the interest, desire, feelings etc of an individual is not connected with the object or situation in any way, his/ her responses towards the said object or situation will not be attitude but opinion. Because in those cases, attitudes or psychic states cannot be observed as psychological variables are dormant or latent. Being covert, attitude measurement is difficult. Inference, prediction from behaviour data, interviews with structured questionnaires and scales are the usual tools for attitudinal measurement. Attitude survey is conducted to recruit new incumbents and to evaluate the human relation in the factories, industries and different organisations. The study of attitude is also important in designing a training programme, which is a core HRD function. Attitude survey focuses on feelings and motives of the employees’ opinions about their working environments. There are three basic purposes for conducting attitude surveys: To compare results with other survey resultsTo measure the effect of changes that occurTo determine the nature and extent of employees’ feelings regarding specific organisational issues and the organisation in general. Usually attitude surveys are carried out by interviewing a person with a structured close ended questionnaire. The skill of the interviewer is all important for measurement of attitude correctly.
Scaling of Attitudes:
Scale is an instrument with the help of which a concept is measured. It is used in all types of data collection techniques such as observation, interview, projective techniques etc. Broadly there are two types of scales. One is rating scales and the other is attitude scales. In attitude scaling, the respondents confront with a number of favourable and unfavourable statements about the subject and find out the extent of his/her agreement or disagreement with them. The objective is to measure people’s attitude to ideas, products or service. The underlying assumption in attitude scaling is that, attitudes determine opinions and decisions about the product/service/idea. To understand the human behaviour, and to influence it in a given direction, it is necessary to understand the opinions and the basic attitudes underlying them. There are many types of scales and scaling techniques. The most appropriate technique is chosen to suit the research topic. The statements contained therein are prepared in such a way that, the answers received can easily be converted into numerical values. The three most commonly used scales are the Nominal scale, the Ordinal scale and the Interval scale. Nominal Scale: The nominal scale simply allows the categorization of responses into a number of mutually exclusive categories. There are no relationships between the categories, implying that there is no ranking or ordering. The typical applications of the nominal scale is in classification of responses by social class, ” like” or ” dislike”, ” yes” or ”no”, gender, and so on. Counting is the only possible statistical operation for nominally scaled data. Ordinal Scale: The ordinal scale, allows the respondents to rank some alternatives by some common variable. The ranking of different brands of a particular consumer product by a group of consumers on the basis of the perceived quality can be measured by ordinal scale. The users of the product rank the brands from the best to the worst. The amount of difference between the ranks cannot be measured. The only possible statistical operation for such data is to compute positional statistical measures like median and mode. Interval Scale: The deficiencies of the nominal and the ordinal scales are taken care of in the interval scale. The scale has an arbitrary zero point with numbers placed at equally appearing intervals. A number of statistical operations including addition, subtraction, and computation of the mean can be done on interval scaled data. Mostly the nominal and the ordinal type of scales are used in attitude measurement. However, there are attempts to treat them or convert them into interval scales so as to make the data more amenable to statistical operations. The attitude measurement scales can be categorised into those which are uni-dimensional in nature and those which are multidimensional. The different type of single dimensional attitude measurement scales are numerical scales, summated scales, equal-appearing intervals, paired comparisons, etcLikert’s Summated Rating ScaleThurstone’s Equal Appearing Intervals ScaleGutterman’s Cumulative ScaleThe Semantic differential scale
Likert’s Summated Rating Scale
A summated rating scale is a set of attitude statements of which all are considered as approximated equal attitude value. And to each of the statement, the subjects respond with a degree of agreement or disagreement carrying different scores. These scores are summed and averaged to yield an individual’s attitude score. For the statements that imply negative attitudes, the scoring is reversed. Under this method each respondent’s ranking is found out by totalling his scores on all the statements. The summative models assume that the individual items in the scale are monotonically related to the underlying attributes and a summation of the item scores is related linearly to the attitude. The scales allow an expression of the intensity of feeling. These scales are also called Likert scales. Here, instead of having just ” agree” and ” disagree” in the scale, we can have intensities varying from ” strongly agree” to ” strongly disagree”. In this procedure, respondents are asked to respond to a certain number of statements. Reply to each statement is given in terms of five degrees of agreement or disagreement i. e, strongly agree, agree, undecided, disagree, strongly disagree. Each statement thus becomes scale in itself having five points on it. At one end of this scale is strong approval and the other end is strong disapproval, between them there are intermediate points. The respondents mention their stand on this scale with reference to each statement. The total of the scores on all statements of a particular respondent is taken as his attitude. The procedure, however, suffers from the following drawbacks: Ties in ranks occur quite frequently. Several respondents may have with total scores of 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 who cannot be ordered in relation to one another. It does not throw light on the different way in which given scores may be obtained. Different combinations of the score imply differences among individuals which are not revealed by this procedure. It is not possible to determine whether the scale is uni-dimensional or multi dimensional i. e whether the statements are measuring only one property or several properties of an attitude. In this scale all statements are deemed to be of equal attitude value. There is no scale of statements as such. This method orders the individuals on the basis of their total scores and not statements.
Thurstone’s Equal Appearing Intervals Scale
This scale focuses on scaling respondents and not statements. The first step in the scale construction is to scale the attitude statements along with the attitude continuum. This is done by asking some ” judges” to evaluate the items along some continuum. The statements for the study are sorted into 11 groups. The extreme piles represent the most favourable and the most unfavourable statements. The judges are expected to make the equal intervals between the groups. The mean rating by judges is taken as the scale point for each item. Ambiguous or irrelevant items are dropped. The items selected for the final scale are such that (a) each item has a small standard deviation of ratings over judges and (b) the mean ratings spread evenly from one end of the rating continuum to the other. The selected items are listed in a random order to form the final scale. To administer the scale for the measurement of the attitude of a respondent, it needs the latter to mark only the items with which he/she agrees. The score for the respondent then is taken as the scale value of the median item endorsed or the average scale value of the items endorsed. For instance, suppose a respondent agrees with items which have scale values as 9, 10, and 11. This would imply that he has a favourable attitude to the object. Assuming that score of 11 implies most positive attitude. The Turnstone scales are prepared with an odd number of positions and the usual number is 11. The scale has some drawbacks such as the time requirement being fairly high, attitudes of the judges influence scale positions. No information on the degree or intensity of agreement with the different items is also another drawback of this scale.
Guttman Scale
It is a type of deterministic attitude measurement techniques. The underlying assumption is that each statement has a perfect relationship, of one type or another, with the particular dimension of the attitude being investigated. For example, a study to investigate a community’s attitude towards gender disparity through Guttman scale could consist of the following items: Gender disparity needs to be eradicatedGender disparity hinders growth and development of the countryWe should strongly support gender parityGuttman Scale is usually applied to dichotomous data, i. e data with only two values, YES or NO, 0 or 1, agree or disagree, etc. However, a number of reasons have made the Guttman scale impractical tool for the measurement of attitudes. First, the construction of the scale requires a lot of time and effort. Secondly, there may be very few items existing that may fit the model. The semantic differential scaleThe semantic differential technique of Osgood et al. (1957) asks a person to rate an issue or topic on a standard set of bipolar adjectives, each representing a seven point scale. It is a very flexible approach of obtaining measures of attitudes. The, object that is rated is called the ” concept” and almost anything including cosmetics, political parties, social movement etc can be rated by this method. Semantic differential scale is based on a seven-point rating scale for each of a number of attributes relating to the research topic. The extreme point represents the bipolar adjectives with the central category representing neutral. In the semantic differential scale only the extremes have names. The in-between categories have either blank spaces or sometimes a number. Attitude measurement of a community towards two major national political parties A, B with the help of semantic scale is as follows:
Induction
Induction is aimed at introducing the job and organization to the new recruits and him or her to the organization. It involves orientation and probation training of the employees in the organizational culture and helping him to realise how he or she is interconnected to and interdependent on everyone else in the organization. Induction is a socialisation process by which the organisation attempts to make an individual act as an agent for the achievement of its objectives. The new employees are required to be oriented to the organisation and to its policies, rules and regulations and procedure. A good induction programme will go a long way to make the new staff member settle fast. Unfortunately, induction as an organisational aspect has been often neglected in practice. An induction or orientation programme is designed to achieve the following objectives: To build up the new employees’ confidence in the organisation and in himself so that he may become an efficient employee. To develop a feeling of loyalty among the newcomers towards the organisation. To foster a close and cordial relationship among the employees. To ensure that the new employees do not form a false impression and negative attitude towards the organisation or the job. To impart the necessary information to the employees like available facilities, existing rules and regulations of the organisation etc. The new employees’ first contact with his or her physical and human working environment is extremely important, since it will condition his or her relationship with the company. According to john McGillicuddy, ” one of the first and most lasting impressions new employees have on their employers much depends upon how they are greeted and treated on the first day of work”. The employees must be given importance and feel supported. The first person he or she meet and interact is the immediate supervisor who presents him the corporate profile along with other additional information. He also provides information on organization’s background, values, clientele, and services offered, staff, and expected behaviour as well as specify the expected role of newcomers. Generally, the process of orientation begins by taking the new employees around the factory and offices of the company. The supervisor introduces new employees to the existing employees and provides the immediately needed information about others as well as about the organisation in order to make him feel comfortable in the new surroundings. Lectures and discussions may be arranged to provide the necessary information and guidance. Handbooks, manuals and pamphlets may also be supplied for the orientation of the new employees. The information provided to the new employees during the orientation process includes: The company and its historyProducts, process of production and major operations involved in his job. The significance of the job with all necessary information about it including job training and job hazards. Structure of the organization and the functions of various departments. Employee’s own department and his job, and how he fits into the organization. Personnel policy and sources of information. Company policies, practices, objectives and regulations. Terms and conditions of service, amenities and welfare facilities. Rules and regulations governing hours of work and over-time, safety and accident prevention, holidays and vacations, methods of reporting, tardiness and, absenteeism. Grievances procedure and discipline handling. Social benefits and recreation services. Opportunities, promotions, transfer, suggestion schemes and job satisfactionEmployee orientation programmes are designed to introduce new employees to the job, supervisor, co workers and organisation. Employee orientation programmes focus on encounter stage of socialisation, which is the period during which the new comer finds out what the job and life in the organisation are really like. This orientation programme may be given formally. However, in case of small firms, the induction programme is likely to be more informal and of short duration. In case of big organisations, it is more of the formal types and of longer duration which may extend up to two to four weeks. Orientation programmes may also be in the form of providing induction training to the new employees where they are familiarised with the work environment and the fellow employees. The new employees are also taught basic techniques or methods to do the work for which they are recruited. An induction programme consists of primarily of three steps: 1. General orientation by the staff: It gives necessary general information about the history and the operations of the firm. The purpose is to help an employee to build up some pride and interest in the organization. 2. Specific orientation by the job supervisor: The employee is shown the department and his place of work, the location of facilities and is told about the organization’s specific practices and customs. The purpose is to enable the employee to adjust with his work and environment. 3. Follow-up orientation by either the personnel department or the supervisor: This is conducted within one week to six months of the initial induction and by a foreman or a specialist. The purpose is to find out whether the employee is reasonably well satisfied with him. Through personal talks, guidance and counselling efforts are made to remove the difficulties experienced by the newcomer.
Induction and Deployment
One of the several sure ways to retain the best persons selected for employment in an organisation is to induct them properly into the organisation to make them feel that they have come to the right place to work. Once the employees get his/her orientation to the organisation reasonably well, posting the person to the right place wherein he/she would fit in, most appropriately, is referred to as deployment. The skills, responsibility, interpersonal relationship and ability to work in a team and such other qualities of individuals are important considerations in the deployment of staff. If deployment of personnel is not done carefully, organisations effort to have enough potentially competent persons would be difficult.
Employee Socialisation
Employee Socialisation is the process of becoming insider and defined as ” the process by which an individual acquires the social knowledge and skills necessary to assume an organisational role”. The net result of this process is that a new hire who was outsider is transformed into a productive and accepted insider. It can also be applied to transferred and promoted employees as well. Socialization is a process of adaption that takes place as individuals attempt to learn the values and norms of work roles. Employee orientation and induction is also called employee socialisation process. Socialisation, however, is a continuous process. Today’s organisations being dynamic, the objective of socialisation is to develop a homogenous and congenial work atmosphere in the organization. Socialization strongly influences employee performance and organizational stability. Decenzo and Robins (1999) identified that socialisation process involves three distinct stages as under: I. Pre-arrival stage: At this stage individual employees come to an organisation with certain values, attitudes and expectations. The HR personnel or the immediate supervisor help an employee to understand to what extent his perceived mapping gets along with organisational culture systems and value. Now-a-days because of availability of information about organisations through different media, including websites and internet, an enthusiastic individual may also have some preconceived ideas about the organisation which help him to synchronize this information with reality and take the right decisions. II. Encounter stage: At this stage, perceptions earlier generated by an individual, after reaffirmed through a well planned induction programme, any dichotomy between the employees’ perceptions and expectations with that of organisational value, ethics and work culture is properly identified and rooted out through intense socialisation process. III. Metamorphosis stage: At this final stage of socialisation, employees understand the organisations to the required extent and identify them with the organisations. Employees develop a sense of belongingness and become a contributor to achieving organisational goals and objectives. Socialisation researchers have suggested a wide variety of affective, cognitive and behavioural outcomes of socialisation. However, successful socialisation process has positive outcome, enhancing organisational commitment and innovation and unsuccessful socialisation leads to negative outcome resulting unmet expectations, increasing employee dissatisfaction, lack of commitment and turnover. However, socialisation is a continuous process to keep pace with the changing environment in every now and then.
SUMMARY
Recruitment, selection, induction and placement are important tools for hiring manpower from external sources. HRP helps in identifying the manpower requirements, keeping pace with corporate objectives and strategies. After assessment of manpower requirement, it is important to identify to what extent such requirements can be met from internal sources by restructuring and redeployment. After this exercise is over, if there is any additional manpower requirements, needs to be met through external hiring process which requires steps like recruitment, selection, induction and placement. At all these stages, certain norms are required to be followed to ensure proper selection and placement.